In today's industrialized, high tech world, we have new products being developed on a regular basis. Large industrial complexes blend, burn, mix, settle, ionize, dispose and utilize various processes in an attempt to eliminate resulting waste products in a low cost controlled manner.
In many cases, manufacturing plants end up with waste product in the form of sludge as the end product following the processing. This sludge can be on the bottom of ponds or as AGS tank bottoms. On occasion, sludge can be found in other locations after being removed from tanks or ponds. Some of the sludge has chemical, BTU, and/or a beneficial reuse value.
There is a need for efficiently and effectively removing sludge from its deposited location to a transport vehicle. One typical process includes use of a vacuum truck for suctioning the sludge. However, non-uniform sludge pieces are known to inhibit the effective removal using such a vacuuming.
By way of further example, many types of sludge such as that found in pulp and paper processing is “hard” and requires a more aggressive action typically used. Further, there is a need to process the sludge from liquor, a part of the normal mill liquor cycle, and return the sludge to a fluidized state such as “black liquor” and place the black liquor into the removal system for burning in a recovery boiler to generate energy, by way of example. There is a further need for portability, using hydraulics as a means of power and a dependable machine can be moved directly into tanks for processing directly at the point of the problem. Yet further, there is a need for processing sludge, from a generally soft state or hard state and delivering it to a vacuum truck which further delivers the processed sludge to a desired location.